Tied to the Tracks (6 page)
Read Tied to the Tracks Online
Authors: Rosina Lippi
She could do this by computer, but she wanted more control. One click and e-mail was gone into the ether, as absolute and remorseless as the spoken word. The letter she could carry around in her pocket until the right moment came, and then even once it was in the mailbox she might be able to get it back; she knew all the letter carriers.
... we understand from President Bray’s letter that time is of the essence, and so we will be arriving in Ogilvie toward the end of next week . . .
She went through it step by step, answering every question she could anticipate, working hard to strike the right tone: cooperative, thorough, detached. At the end she hesitated.
We look forward to this opportunity to work with Miss Zula.
Her fingers hesitated above the keys while she listened to the sentence humming in her mind.
For whatever role you may have played in bringing this work our way, many thanks.
For whatever role you may have played in bringing this work our way, many thanks.
It was a statement and a question, too. The real question, the one she had been pushing away since the first hint of what was coming her way, that phone call from Georgia. What she wanted to know but could not ask was, Who was it who had given Zula Bragg their work to look at? All the way back to the office, Angie tried to get that question out of her head, and failed.
THREE
Zula McGuffin Bragg
was born in Ogilvie, Georgia, on April 2, 1930, the first daughter and second child of Martin Bragg, a music teacher, and Luisa McGuffin McCleod Bragg, a graduate of Bethune-Cookman College. In 1948 Ms. Bragg was the first African-American to be admitted to Ogilvie College. After graduating magna cum laude in 1952 she taught English at Ogilvie’s Colored High School. Her first novel,
Magpie,
was published by Knopf in 1955 when she was twenty-five. In 1958 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a series of essays on voting rights in the South. In 1961 she received a master of arts degree from Columbia University and accepted a position on the faculty of the English department at Ogilvie College, where she is still active. Ms. Bragg has published more than fifty short stories, three books of collected essays, and six novels. Her work has been translated into twenty-three languages. Her novel
Catch Can
won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She has twice been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize. Ms. Bragg lives in Ogilvie, Georgia, in the house where she was born.
was born in Ogilvie, Georgia, on April 2, 1930, the first daughter and second child of Martin Bragg, a music teacher, and Luisa McGuffin McCleod Bragg, a graduate of Bethune-Cookman College. In 1948 Ms. Bragg was the first African-American to be admitted to Ogilvie College. After graduating magna cum laude in 1952 she taught English at Ogilvie’s Colored High School. Her first novel,
Magpie,
was published by Knopf in 1955 when she was twenty-five. In 1958 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a series of essays on voting rights in the South. In 1961 she received a master of arts degree from Columbia University and accepted a position on the faculty of the English department at Ogilvie College, where she is still active. Ms. Bragg has published more than fifty short stories, three books of collected essays, and six novels. Her work has been translated into twenty-three languages. Her novel
Catch Can
won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. She has twice been shortlisted for the Nobel Prize. Ms. Bragg lives in Ogilvie, Georgia, in the house where she was born.
The Dictionary of Southern Women Writers of Color
Just when John was beginning to hope that dinner at Miss Zula’s might turn out all right after all, she pointed her sharpest gaze at him and asked the one question he was hoping to avoid.
“Did you watch that documentary, John?”
All faces turned to him. “Yes, ma’am, I did. Miss Maddie, might I have a little more of your fried chicken?”
“Of course you may. Caroline, will you please eat, child? I swear, you’ve got to stand up twice to throw a shadow.”
Kai said, “Documentary?” and that was the beginning of the end.
John’s sister-in-law was Japanese. She had been in the States for ten years but her curiosity about things American was unquenchable. Kai Watanabe also had a doctorate in math, which meant that her curiosity was bolstered by an unflinching logic that she applied indiscriminately, whether or not the subject matter could bear that burden. On top of that, Kai was married to Rob Grant, who delighted in her apparent compulsion to say exactly what she thought and ask the questions that everybody was thinking but nobody else dared to put into words. Together at any traditionally southern table, Kai Watanabe and Rob Grant constituted a cultural revolution.
Worst of all, Kai was the only person who could throw Caroline off balance. John had seen it happen a half dozen times and it still surprised him; he had yet to find an explanation that made any sense. Caroline, who could face down the nastiest of critics in open debate at a conference panel, seemed to fall apart when Kai Watanabe’s attention turned in her direction.
Now Kai’s perfectly shaped face was lifted up to John’s. “What documentary?”
“Miss Zula gave it to me. Done by the company that’s coming down to do the filming. And, yes, Caroline and I have watched it together.”
“And?” Kai said, her fork poised. “Did you like it, Caroline?”
Caroline cleared her throat very gently, which meant she was irritated by Kai’s questions but was struggling not to show it.
“Yes, I did.”
Kai’s fork hovered still. “Why?”
“What documentary is this we’re talking about?” Miss Maddie said. “Is it the one about the opera singers?”
“Lord, no,” said Miss Zula. “It’s the one about the old L&N Railroad.”
“Oh, yes,” Miss Maddie said. “About the Shortt children going off to Berea College.” She turned to Miss Zula. “Who sent that to you, sister? Was it somebody from one of those northern schools?”
As far as Miss Maddie was concerned, no institution north of Princeton had any claim to her attention, and she refused to remember their names.
“That’s right,” Miss Zula said, smiling at Kai.
Miss Maddie warmed to her story. “A poor farming family in . . . where was it now?”
“Virginia,” said Miss Zula, who was watching the table with undisguised pleasure. No doubt she would write a short story about this. Miss Maddie collected postcards, and Miss Zula conversations.
“Virginia,” Miss Maddie nodded happily. “Subsistence farmers, the very poorest, but hardworking? Oh, my. And they managed to send all five of their girls and three of the boys off to Berea College. The boys all studied to be teachers and the girls all became nurses. Every last one of them. The first one in 1915, if you can imagine such a thing. One after the other they got on the train and off they went.”
“Yes,” said John. “Even the one who shouldn’t have gone.”
“Now, that’s true.” She wiggled a little in her chair, a sign John recognized. Miss Maddie was settling in for a good long discussion, but at the other end of the table, Miss Zula had made other plans.
She said, “What did you think of the documentary, Caroline?”
John got a sudden trace of Caroline’s perfume, which meant that she had begun to perspire, a rare thing.
“It might have been melodramatic,” Caroline said. “But it wasn’t handled that way at all. I thought it was very good.”
“Please explain,” Kai said.
Caroline’s smile was brittle. “Well. Let me see—the script was good, excellent cinematography, a compelling and insightful accounting of a socioeconomic anomaly . . .” Her voice trailed off. She knew how stilted she sounded, or at least John hoped she did.
“A good story?” Kai asked.
“Well, yes.” Caroline’s irritation was rising as surely as her color. “I suppose that would be one way to put it.” She sent Miss Zula a sidelong glance.
“Good,” Kai said, her English clear and precise. “I would like to see it.”
Later, John said, “She’s like a kitten, Caroline. You dangle yarn in front of her, of course she’s going to want to play.”
They were sitting in John’s car, parked at the curb in front of Old Roses, where Caroline lived with her mother.
“Kai Watanabe is more like a tiger than a kitten,” Caroline said. Her hand strayed toward the door handle. “I suppose I had best learn how to deal with her, and the sooner the better.”
That was one of the things about Caroline that John liked best. She was uncomplicated in the ways that mattered most, logical where she might have been reactionary, calm at all costs. He had known her only by sight when they were children, but then last year she had come to Princeton to give a paper just about the same time he had accepted the Ogilvie offer, and they had had a lot to talk about. John had been taken in by what had seemed to him an odd combination of southern soft and academic sharp.
John ran a finger down her arm, the skin cool and pale, her elbow a perfect right angle. “Do you want me to come in?”
She smiled at him. “Harriet and Eunice are coming over in a half hour to look at bridal magazines with me.”
John sat back. “What, just the two of them?”
“The others will be by later.”
When John thought of Caroline’s four older sisters it was always as a unit, one he thought of as the Army of the Thoroughly Married. Not happily married, all of them, but determined to draft new inductees nevertheless. Caroline went along with it because she loved them but also, John believed, because she actually liked all the wedding fuss. Not that she could admit that, even to herself, and it would have shocked her if he told her that he found this pocket of sentimentality a reassuring thing.
“These planning meetings mean a lot to my sisters, you know.”
“I’ve got paperwork to take care of, anyway.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “The film people and all that.”
“Just as well,” she said. Then she leaned forward suddenly and kissed him. “Call me later.”
The English department was deserted, quiet, and cool in the hot of the day, and John closed himself in his office and fell onto the couch to watch the shadows of the trees play on the far wall.
There was a television and DVD player on a portable stand between the windows, and the remote, usually so difficult to locate, was digging into his hindquarters. He shifted, and the television burped and buzzed and came to life.
He really didn’t need to watch the damn documentary again. There was nothing productive to be gained by it. The contract was signed, the deal was done; Angeline Mangiamele was on her way here, along with Rivera Rosenblum—there was a name out of his past, one that made him smile in spite of himself—and this Tony Russo. Whoever that was. Maybe Angie’s husband, or boyfriend. She couldn’t have stayed alone, not for five years. Surely not.
Except the documentary really was good, better than good; more than he had let himself hope for.
On the television screen a clip of old film showed a train moving across a winter landscape in grainy black and white. And then the voice, the one he didn’t need to hear again, not just now.
John got up and went to his desk, where he found a piece of bright pink paper with Patty-Cake’s handwriting: office assignments for the visiting faculty, and the paperwork for the payroll office, and the question she seemed to ask him twice a day: Would Ms. Mangiamele and Ms. Rosenblum be teaching the fall courses they had been offered? If not, they’d have to start looking for somebody else.
John made himself sit down behind the desk to take care of the housing request, the one he had started to work on three days ago and hadn’t been able to finish past question ten.
In order to best match available housing with visiting faculty, we would appreciate as much detail as can be provided on the visitor’s family and any special needs to be taken into consideration.
The things John knew about Angie Mangiamele could hardly be written on a form for a clerk in the housing office to read. Especially as that clerk might well turn out to be Harriet Darling, Caroline’s oldest sister.
She snores,
he could write that, and no doubt she could share a few colorful facts about him, too. But if this was going to work—and it had to work—he would have to find a way to put all those little things out of his head and start fresh.
he could write that, and no doubt she could share a few colorful facts about him, too. But if this was going to work—and it had to work—he would have to find a way to put all those little things out of his head and start fresh.
From the television came the soft deep lilt of Virginia and in counterpoint a more familiar voice, slightly husky, carefully modulated and still New Jersey. She disliked her accent, or had, back then. Maybe she had learned to appreciate it; maybe they couldn’t afford to hire a professional voice-over actor. In fact, she sounded as if she had a little bit of a cold when she recorded the narration.
Prone to upper respiratory infections.
That was something to write, and:
Hates going to the doctor. Hates letting anybody do anything for her. Does her own taxes, paints her own walls. Cuts her own hair.
That was something to write, and:
Hates going to the doctor. Hates letting anybody do anything for her. Does her own taxes, paints her own walls. Cuts her own hair.
He pushed away from the desk and went to look out the window, imagined Angie down there walking under the cherry trees. She was coming, and he couldn’t stop it. She would make friends in the town; in a week everybody would know her name. It was her particular gift, making people open up. He had seen her following an irascible old mailman around for days until she had soaked up everything he had to teach her about a neighborhood she was interested in filming. No doubt he still sent her Christmas cards. No doubt she answered them.
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